The present invention relates to a water spraying apparatus for an ice making machine and, more particularly, to an apparatus for supplying water for making ice in a flow-down type ice making machine that provides uniform flow to each spray tube.
Flow type ice making machines are well known for automatic making of ice. The ice is made by supplying ice making water to flow down over the surfaces of ice making plates which are cooled by the heat of evaporation of a coolant. Generally, pairs of ice making plates are vertically disposed in a back to back opposite relation. A refrigerating pipe containing the coolant is sandwiched between the rear surfaces of each of the pair of ice making plates. Water is sprayed or sprinkled from a water spray apparatus disposed above the ice making plates and flows downwardly along the front or exposed surfaces of the pair of ice making plates. As the water flows down over the plates, ice is formed. In the ice extracting operation which follows the ice making operation, a hot gas is forced to flow through the refrigerating plate to heat the ice making plates for melting the ice formed on the surfaces. Additionally, deicing water for promoting melting and separation or detachment of the ice from the plates is generally caused to flow between the rear surfaces of the pair of ice making plates.
Generally, such ice making machines house several pairs of ice making plates and, in particular, one such commercially available ice making machine has six pairs of such plates provided in the machine in two sets of three pairs.
Generally, the water supply apparatus constitutes a part of a water supply loop for circulating the water from and to a water collector tank disposed below the ice making plates. The water supply apparatus includes a water spray device which serves to spray a relatively large amount of water on the front surfaces of the pair of ice making plates. Such apparatuses are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,526,014, 4,580,410, 4,601,178, 4,791,792, 5,237,837, 5,493,872 and 5,520,011. The last two mentioned patents are particularly directed to a water sprinkling or water spray tube structure.
Various spray tube designs have given varied results for multi-plate evaporators. Due to depleted water flow to certain sections of the evaporator, the ice making machine can produce unsuitable product such as ice with irregular shapes, cloudy ice, immature ice, and a variety of other problems. It has been difficult to provide uniform water flow to all of the portions of all of the multiple pairs of ice making plates.
Another important consideration in the design of a water supply apparatus in addition to the provision of more even distribution of water flow to the ice making plates, is the ever present consideration of cost in manufacturing of the apparatus as well as the indirect cost of labor in manufacturing and/or repairing of the overall ice making machine.